Fast & Loose (26 page)

All over Louisville, to celebrate Derby Eve, his colleagues were carousing like Vikings and running amok at any number of nightspots and parties. But Cole Early, splashily dressed, larger-than-life media darling, the man everyone was probably looking to interview at those parties and nightspots, was tucked away on a quiet farm in Shelby County with Lulu. Didn’t that tell her everything she needed to know? If he really was brassy, brash, arrogant King Cole, he’d be out running amok himself right now. Or, if he were stuck here with her, he’d be anxious and nervous because he’d feel so out of place, and he’d want to be out carousing like a Viking and running amok.

Beneath his surface, he wasn’t arrogant, brassy, or brash. Beneath his surface, he was actually a very sweet guy. But then, on some level, Lulu had already known that about him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here with him right now. In fact, she never would have been anywhere with him. Because she never would have had anything to do with a brassy, brash, arrogant guy in the first place.

At some point after meeting him—maybe even the minute she did meet him—she’d seen beneath his surface to the sweet guy underneath. The same way he, at some point—maybe even before he started reading her journal—had seen beneath hers. And when people were able to do that with each other, when they were able to see beyond the outer trappings and fall for what was underneath, it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Rather, it was something to celebrate. Something to pull close. Something to hold on to. Maybe forever.

“So do you like Mayhew Farms?” Cole asked beside her.

She listened to the crickets, looked up at the night sky, and snuggled a little bit closer. Then she nodded. “It’s beautiful, Cole.”

His body went lax beside her when she said it, and he exhaled a long sigh of what sounded very much like relief. “Good,” he said softly. “Because I bought the place this afternoon.”

She tilted her head back to look at him, certain she must have misheard, certain she must have only imagined what he said, because it was something she would have loved so much to hear. “You did what?” she asked, just to be sure.

“The place was going to go on the market next month. So I made an offer to the Mayhews this afternoon, and they accepted it.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “Just like that?”

He looked down at her and smiled. “Just like that.”

“Why?”

He gave a little shrug, but there was nothing casual in the gesture. “I’m branching out my business,” he told her. “Bringing some of it East. Like you said, Kentucky horses are some of the best.”

“I said they’re
the
best,” she corrected him.

“Right. Some of the best,” he repeated, grinning. “I’ve been thinking for a while now that it might be nice to have a second location for Early Farms.”

“How long have you been thinking about that?” she asked.

“Oh, man, for a while. At least two days.”

She laughed at that.

“Anyway, the Mayhews mentioned over dinner last week that they were going to retire and put the place up for sale next month, because both their kids pursued careers outside the Thoroughbred business. That got some wheels turning in my head. Expanding my business here makes sense. This farm has been producing champions for almost a century. The Thoroughbred heritage here in Kentucky is incomparable. The state is gorgeous.”

“Commonwealth,” she corrected him.

“What?”

“Kentucky isn’t actually a state. It’s a commonwealth.”

“Now, see, that’s the kind of thing I need to know if I’m going to be living here six months out of the year.”

Something that had been squeezed tight in Lulu’s chest for much of the evening eased up at hearing that. Too fearful to even hope, she asked softly, “You’re moving here?”

“Part-time,” he told her. “I don’t think I could handle your winters after being in southern California for so long, but I figure April through October has got to be pretty pleasant—”

“Well, we do have pretty humid summers,” she felt obligated to tell him. “And the temperatures can hit the nineties fairly regularly.”

“Which is why the HVAC gods created central air-conditioning.” He grinned. “And an April arrival will ensure that I’m here for all those wacky Derby events,” he added.

“You really want to relocate here?” she asked, still afraid to believe it was true. Seeing him six months out of the year was better than no months out of the year. “Even part-time?”

He nodded without hesitation. “Yeah,” he said. “I really do. I like Kentucky. I don’t think I could leave it behind if I tried. Louisville and Lexington are two of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited. And the people here…” He covered his heart with his free hand and splayed his fingers wide. “Lulu, I just love the people here.”

The pressure around her heart eased some more. “Do you?”

He nodded. “I do.”

She scooted a little closer to him on the swing. “Well, you know, I think a lot of the people here have grown pretty fond of you, too.”

He scooted a little closer to her, too. “Actually, there’s one person here whose feelings I’m more interested in than others.”

Still looking up at him, her head settled against his shoulder, she asked, “Anybody I know?”

“You know her now,” he said, moving his hand to her face, cupping her jaw in his palm. “And she…you…” He smiled. “You’re the reason I want to spend half the year here.” He hesitated a telling moment before adding, “And maybe, someday, you might want to spend the other half of the year in Temecula with me.”

By now, the pressure in Lulu’s chest had evaporated, letting her heart race free. And race it did at the thought of maybe—probably…definitely?—spending every day of every year with Cole. It was a huge, unspoken commitment he had just made, buying a farm here. He had pretty much just said he wanted to begin work on a future that included both of them, a future that was far-reaching and potentially permanent. He was telling her she was massively important to him. The way he had become massively important to her. It didn’t matter where they were—Kentucky, California, or Timbuktu. As long as she was with Cole, Lulu was where she wanted, needed, to be. Of course, it helped that she could take her art with her wherever she went. It was, after all, a part of her. The same way Cole had become a part of her, too.

He must have thought her silence was the result of indecision, because before she had a chance to tell him she rather liked his idea, he hurried on. “I know it’s a lot to presume,” he said, “but at least think about it. I have a small barn on my property that you could turn into a studio. And the arts scene in southern California, Lulu, is huge.
Huge.
And I’m not far from the ocean. Lots of artistic inspiration there. I mean, how many poets have compared the ocean to glass? Or vice versa? And I’m close to the mountains, too. And Mexico’s not that far away. There’s inspiration everywhere. And if you don’t like the ocean, or the mountains, or Mexico, we can spend our weekends in Santa Fe sometimes. Now
there’s
a place that’s just—”

She halted him by placing her fingers lightly over his mouth. And she smiled as she told him, “You had me at ‘Sorry about that, sweetheart.’”

He looked confused for a minute, then he smiled, too. “And you had me at ‘Don’t forget your sunscreen and Mardi Gras beads.’” He hesitated another moment, and when he spoke again, his fear was almost palpable. “So does this mean you’re interested?”

She nodded. “Anywhere you are, Cole, that’s all the inspiration I need.”

His body went even more relaxed beside her, as if hearing her agreement finally chased away whatever was left of his fear. “It’ll mean shouldering the mantle of Queen Cole from time to time,” he cautioned.

She shook her head. “No, it won’t. I’ll be shouldering the mantle of Queen Lulu.”

He smiled. “And that’ll be okay?”

She nodded. “Now that you’ve put me in touch with my inner hedonist, not only do I know just what to do, but I think I’ll probably have fun doing it. As long as we have nights like this, too.”

He curled his arm more securely around her. “Oh, I promise you, Lulu, there will be many,
many
nights like this in our future.”

And that, Lulu thought, was about as good as a life could get.

HAD COLE PUT IN A SPECIFIC ORDER FOR DERBY DAY
weather, he didn’t think the meteorologists could have filled it more perfectly. Lulu had told him she recalled Derby Days that had anything from ninety-plus humidity-dripping degrees to near-freezing sleet. Springtime in Kentucky, she told him, was always an adventure. Today, however, the sky was a crisp, perfect blue with just enough gauzy wisps of cloud stretched here and there to break the glorious monotony. The temperature hovered at around seventy-two degrees, and the humidity had taken a vacation. As he stood in the clubhouse of Churchill Downs staring down at the crowd below, he almost felt like he was home in California.

He smiled as the thought unrolled in his head. He was home. Just not the one in California at the moment.

But that had nothing to do with where he happened to be standing and everything to do with the woman standing beside him. For Derby Day this year, Lulu had gone all out. Her dress was a blue and yellow print that hugged her curves, showcased her legs, and doubtless would have brought out her eyes beautifully if it weren’t for the big yellow sunglasses she was wearing. She’d bought her hat from Louisville’s premier milliner, Audrey Fine, who ran her shop on the first floor of an old brick Victorian on Third Street that was reputed to be haunted. Audrey and her shop, Finery, had both lived up to their names. Within minutes of walking through the door, the milliner had had Lulu, ah, millined in a hat whose colors were identical to her dress, with a broad blue straw brim and a crown covered with yellow silk roses.

It was actually a conservative hat compared to the hot pink, chartreuse, and orange number her friend Bree was wearing on the other side of Lulu. The brim on hers was so wide, it covered half of her back, and there were enough feathers atop the damned thing that she was going to take flight if the breeze picked up even the slightest bit. Still, it suited Bree and her hot pink minidress perfectly. Her husband, Rufus, seemed to think so, too, because the guy hadn’t taken his eyes off her since Cole and Lulu picked them up at their house that morning in the stretch limo they’d rented for the day.

Cole wasn’t the only guy who’d gotten lucky in Kentucky last year. Even when Silk Purse missed winning the first jewel in the Triple Crown, it hadn’t diminished Cole’s certainty that he was the luckiest SOB on earth. Besides, his and Susannah’s entry this year, Shimmering Pearl,
would
go all the way.

A voice over the loudspeaker announced that the horses for the Derby would be making their way around the track to the gates, bringing him back to the matter at hand. Susannah Pennington was on his other side, smiling in a way that let Cole know Esteban,
her
new husband and Pearl’s jockey, was in a
very
good mood today. She looked over at Cole and winked at him, letting him know that was indeed the case.

“So are you feeling lucky?” she asked Cole.

He nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yeah.” Of course, he was thinking about how lucky he was in another area of his life, but he was sure that would wash over into the race, too.

The race fans and bookies had caught on to Pearl’s potential right off the bat, her odds making her this year’s favorite. In a few more minutes, she was going to be the toast of the town, the way Silk had almost been last year. Along with Cole, Susannah, and Esteban. And, of course, Lulu.

Just as she had been last year, she would be with him to help field the crowd, but not because he wanted a buffer. No, what Cole wanted now was, well, everything. And what he’d gotten in Lulu was exactly that.

She slipped her arm through his and pulled him close. “This is always so exciting,” she said as she watched the horses canter and prance on the dirt track below. “There’s so much energy here. So much vibrancy. It’s like the air itself is alive.”

“There’s not another feeling like it in the world,” he assured her. “The minutes before a race are always magic.”

And they felt even more magical now that she was here with him to enjoy them.

The announcer asked everyone to rise for the singing of “My Old Kentucky Home,” something that was unnecessary, as far as Cole was concerned, because who could be seated at a time like this? Nevertheless, he once again had to consult his program to find the lyrics, even though Lulu, Bree, and Rufus sang them by heart. As the song drew to a close, he noticed a tear slip from beneath Lulu’s sunglasses, which she hastily swiped away at the same time Bree performed the same function. The two women laughed as they did so, as they had last year, confirming it was something they did every year.

As he watched the last of the horses entering the gate on the other side of the track, that old feeling seeped into him again. A barely restrained force of power that put his entire body on alert. The crowd went curiously silent as the final gate was closed and stayed that way in the few interminable seconds before the announcement of—

“They’re off!”

And then Cole was in the zone he entered the moment one of his horses hit the track. It was as if a bubble descended to surround him, blocking out everything except the horses pounding the dirt below and throwing them into crystal clarity. But now, Lulu was in the bubble with him. Now, he had her fingers woven with his, her cries of “
Go, baby, go!”
chorusing with his own, her exhilaration, her vitality, and her passion mingling with his and doubling its power. And when Shimmering Pearl rounded the final curve, when she began to pull away from the rest of the horses, when she began to
run
, Lulu grabbed both of his hands in hers, and it was like a jolt of something white-hot and frenetic shot through them both.

By the time Pearl crossed the finish line, she was three lengths ahead of the placing horse. But when Cole swept Lulu into his arms and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, it wasn’t the joy of having his horse win that filled him with such euphoria. It was the joy of having Lulu beside him to share it. And it was the joy of knowing she would be there forever.